Artaxerxes I is the sixth king of kings of the Achaemenid Empire from 465 BCE to 424 BCE.
He is the son of Xerxes I of Persia and Amestris, daughter of Otanes.
(The transliterated name Artxerxes has nothing to do with the name Xerxes.
He may have been the "Artasyrus" mentioned by Herodotus as being a Satrap of the royal satrapy of Bactria.
In Greek sources he is also surnamed Macrocheir (Latin: 'Longimanus'), allegedly because his right hand was longer than his left.
After Persia had been defeated at Eurymedon, military action between Greece and Persia came to a standstill.
When Artaxerxes I takes power, he introduces a new Persian strategy of weakening the Athenians by funding their enemies in Greece.
This indirectly causes the Athenians to move the treasury of the Delian League from the island of Delos to the Athenian acropolis.
This funding practice inevitably prompts renewed fighting in 450 BCE, where the Greeks attack at the Battle of Cyprus.
After Cimon's failure to attain much in this expedition, the Peace of Callias is agreed between Athens, Argos and Persia in 449 BCE.
Artaxerxes I offers asylum to Themistocles, who was the winner of the Battle of Salamis, after Themistocles was ostracized from Athens.
Artaxerxes I instructed Magnesia, Myus and Lampsacus to maintain him in bread, meat and wine, Palaescepsis to provide him with clothes and he gave him Percote with bedding for his house.
